Sunday 7th Sept Morning Worship 11am Rev Alex Wimberly

Sunday School Prize Giving

Evening Service 7pm

Sunday 14th Sept Morning Worship 11am Rev Alex Wimberly

Evening Service 7pm

Sunday 21st Sept Morning Worship 11am Rev Alex Wimberly

Evening Service 7pm

Sunday 28th Sept Morning Worship 11am Rev Alex Wimberly

Evening Service 7pm

SUNDAY SCHOOL PRIZE GIVING

SUNDAY 7th SEPTEMBER

Please plan to join us as we kick off the Sunday School year, acknowledge the accomplishments of our students, and celebrate together with a reception after the service in the Dowling Hall.

BIBLE CLASS 2.0

A Bible Class will be offered Sunday mornings from 9:45-10:30 in the Committee Room for anyone ages 13-17 (years 9-13/Lr 6th).  Please let Alex know if you are planning to attend.  The class aims to be informal, bible-based and applicable to our real lives.

PRESBYTERIAN ORPHAN AND CHILDREN'S SOCIETY

The Presbyterian Orphan and Children's Society exists firstly to support Presbyterian children within Ireland, thereby enhancing children's life chances; and secondly to provide support for the families of these children, through their ministers and others, in order to alleviate poverty and financial hardship.  These children and their families may be facing difficult and tragic circumstances such as bereavement, separation, divorce or long term illness.

This support is delivered through the provision of regular and other grants and the assistance of Presbyterian projects and programmes geared to children and their families as their needs are identified by Presbyterian ministers.  The Society seeks to demonstrate compassion, integrity and respect in all its operations, thereby showing the love of Christ to those within our Church and community.

The Society is most grateful for the very generous and loyal support of the members of McCracken and appeals for your further help to enable it to continue its work.  An envelope is included in the FWO pack.

WEDNESDAY DROP - IN

 TIME TO SPARE ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING. 

FEEL LIKE A CHAT OVER COFFEE.

WHY NOT CALL IN TO THE MINOR HALL FOR A CUPPA.

COFFEE WILL BE AVAILABLE EVERY WEDNESDAY

FROM 17TH SEPTEMBER 10.30 - 12.30.

STAY FOR 10 MINS, HALF AN HOUR , TWO HOURS -

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

SEE YOU THERE

ALL ARE WELCOME

Macmillan Cancer Support

World's Biggest Coffee Morning

The ladies of the Luncheon Circle invite you to a coffee morning to support the above charity on

Friday 26th September in the Dowling Hall from 10.30am to 12 noon.  Please come along and bring your friends.

Outreach News and Greetings from Eighter Island Co.Donegal

Dear Friends,

I write this sitting outside my house in Donegal, watching the ferry making its way to Aranmore; closer to shore a cow is swimming past my nearest pier. I am about to go for my daily swim in our gulf stream – warmed waters (57^oF, 13^oC), but am determined to get my copy to Denise in time for the launch on September 1^st of our congregational website.  Some years ago the missionary committee (as was) asked Session if we could draft an entry for McCracken on the PCI website.  Session agreed, so a group of us drafted our PCI entry, which has just been revised and updated.  Since then the world has moved on and many congregations have their own website which give details of worship and other activities.  Congregations have personalities, and we want our website to reflect McCracken’s warmth and friendliness, and most importantly our commitment to our mission statement.  Four people have played a vital part in developing our website.  First of all James Porter, then at York University, now finishing his PhD at Warwick, designed an excellent prototype;   Secondly, Peter Watters has liaised with James, understands what is necessary, and is prepared to help us technically, at least in the first year and Rachel Watters has “engineered”? the website and has launched the on-line site at www.mccrackenchuch.org  Finally Denise Hughes, editor of our successful and much-read McCracken Chronicle, has taken responsibility for co-ordinating all the information regarding organisations etc.  A very big thank you to all four!

We have a large target audience.  First of all information will be available to all of our members – how often have we forgotten whether a meeting was at 7.30 or 8.00pm – one click of the mouse and that information should be available.  More important, we have many young people who go to university on the “other island” or work in many parts of the world.  This is the congregation in which they were baptised, went to Sunday School, and avowed their faith by becoming communicants – do we not have an obligation to keep in touch with them?  And what about people coming to live in South Belfast?  By looking at our website they can perhaps decide if they would like to come and sample McCracken fare, perhaps at one of our services.  In the first year we will be feeling our way and information will only be uploaded on a monthly basis.  However we have big plans for the future, so please let us know your suggestions, criticisms and news; most particularly google McCracken Church from September 1^st and add our website to your favourites.

So here goes with congregational Outreach News.  Many congratulations to our Sunday School.  Our children, by their own efforts have raised £600 for the PCI Youth and Children project, 2008.  This year all the money raised will support two projects in Pakistan, a literacy programme for girls in which Bible study and Christian Education will play a part and an academy of church music in which Christian leaders will be trained.  This is not the only effort made by our Sunday School – 2 containers with educational material have been sent to Malawi and our Sunday School children independently support Susan in Xian and the Orphan Society.  How wonderful, that through your generosity, we can match our children’s effort pound for pound and they can hand a cheque for £1200 to Church House.

It was appropriate that Father’s Day was special in our own congregation and in neighbouring Taughmonagh.  We must say a big thank you to our Sunday School, teachers and children, for the wonderful party which they gave after church in the Dowling Hall.  In the evening, many of us made our way to Taughmonagh for their Sunday School party.  We enjoyed excellent food, music by the talented Taughmonagh worship group, and two very interesting interviews with young men who are both at University, but find the time to gather up young people on the Taughmonagh estate for coffee and Bible Study and discussion on Sunday evenings.

It is customary to finish holiday postcards with the phrase “wish you were here”.  It’s not that I don’t have that sentiment, but I must be honest, over the summer, I have missed McCracken. So I am really looking forward to getting back to friends and back to Church, where we are so often challenged by God’s great eternal truths.  So I will finish by saying on behalf of all the Outreach Committee let’s celebrate our children’?s success at the Sunday School prize giving.  We invite you for refreshments in the Dowling Hall after the service on the 7^th of September. 

Hope to see you there,

Ingrid

(on behalf of the Outreach Committee)

LOCAL OUTREACH

In the next few weeks we plan to reintroduce ourselves to the people of South Belfast.  McCracken is responsible for providing a church home to anyone living in our area.  With that in mind, we will be going out two by two to distribute a letter to those residing within our church boundary – roughly from Bladon Drive to Finaghy Road South. 

If you happen to live within our bounds, you may very well get a knock on the door and a copy of the letter from Alex and your district elder (or another volunteer).  But for those of you don’t, we wanted to make sure you received a copy of the letter so that if you hear about our canvassing ‘through the grapevine’, you would know more about how we are reaching out to those nearest us.  As indicated in the letter, there will also be a calendar of our weekly events and invitations to events at McCracken included.  If you would like to help distribute the letter and walk with us through our neighbourhood, please contact Alex as soon as possible.  Many thanks.

Dear Neighbour,

        If you’ve received this letter, it is because you live within the area of South Belfast that is served by the McCracken Memorial Presbyterian Church.  Or, at least, that should be served by us. 

I include that caveat because we’re not sure that we’ve done a good enough job at being the church for this part of the world.  We’ve been up on the Malone Road since our founding in 1932, and along with providing Sunday services have been involved in many aspects of the community: hosting scouting organizations, serving a bi-monthly luncheon to local residents, offering a wide range of weekly activities from badminton and bowls to drama circles and youth clubs.   But we recognize that we could be doing more for the people of this area, both practically and spiritually.

That is why we’d like to reintroduce ourselves to you and make sure you know that you have friends and support at McCracken Memorial.  We realise that many of you are members of other churches, other denominations, other faiths, or may not claim a faith at all.  We want to make it clear that we are not looking to solicit anything from you.  We simply want you to know that our faith in Jesus Christ calls us to provide a spiritual home and pastoral support to anyone living in this area. 

Of course, we’d love for you to come and visit us, to share in worship with us on a Sunday, and we would strive to make you feel at home.  But more immediately, we invite you to take a look at our calendar of weekly events (printed on the reverse side), learn more about us online at www.mccrackenchurch.org and contact me if there is anything that we as a church can do for you. 

On behalf of the congregation, I wish you every blessing and rejoice that Christ has given us the task of sharing the Good News with you.

In Christ’s Service,                 

 Alexander Wimberly